


Short Legs

by vinegardog



Category: Farscape
Genre: F/M, Fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 07:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinegardog/pseuds/vinegardog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of John's lies has very short legs and an episode in his past is finally shared with Aeryn</p>
            </blockquote>





	Short Legs

Setting – about 8 weekens after the events of PK Wars  
Some spoilers especially with reference to the Princess Trilogy in S2 and PK Wars  
Rated PG-13   
Disclaimer: Characters belong to the Jim Henson Company, I am just playing with them

Warning: mainly fluff! I have always been curious about what Aeryn would say and when I decided to explore the idea, this was the anti-climactic result!

Thanks yet again to marieYOTZ for being my beta – I am sure she wishes my keyboard got stuck to get some respite from me!

Word count: 2228

Short Legs (PG-13)

Peace had descended over Moya, lights had been dimmed for the night cycle and a soft hush had fallen over the great ship. 

After fussing a little, D had finally lost his fight with sleep and now rested oblivious to the world in his crib at the foot of John and Aeryn’s bed.

They had made love, twice - the slow, satisfying, loving type of lovemaking, a communion of bodies and minds - the type they both enjoyed most after a long day seeing about their duties on Moya and the considerable, new and exhausting task of minding and catering to every need of an eight weeken old baby. They now lay in each other’s arms, tired limbs intertwined with tired limbs.

Bringing Moya back to her healthy self after the events that had taken place on and above Qujaga was a slow but rewarding process – like fixing a beloved home, every single ounce of energy spent on the task was cherished, a small step towards healing in the greater sense of the word. 

It finally looked like some normality could be restored to their lives and every single member of the crew just relished the idea of finding a way forward in spite of the considerable losses and traumas suffered - too many of them, too deep, too painful to linger on – a spur for all of them to try give the horrors some positive meaning by now living their lives in the most rewarding way possible.

At least that is what John intended to do. He had promised himself he would live to the fullest to honour Jool’s senseless death, the destruction of an entire planet, the disruption of the quiet way of life of the Eidelons and the death of the countless anonymous lives that had followed his unleashing of that all eating, fiendish wormhole weapon. He would live big to honour D’Argo’s ultimate sacrifice and abide by his last request.

Since the return from his unexplained open eyed coma, he had spent many a night agonising over all of the recent events. Aeryn had been a quiet, solid, ever present tower of strength by his side – ready to calm him when waking from sweaty, limb thrashing nightmares, sharing his tears over their friends’ losses, just holding him when the demons of guilt and regret devoured his soul. 

Her and D had been the only reasons why he had finally forced himself to come back, the only reasons he had had to live even if life meant carrying, daily, on his shoulders the weight of remorse, the only reasons why he would now make the best of what destiny had in store for them. The worst may be past for the moment but life out there offered no guarantees of safety and security, so he would provide them with the only thing in his power to give: absolute, unerring, untainted, unending love and support. He would take care of Chiana to the best of his abilities as promised to his dying friend, he would aid Rygel in returning to his throne on Hyneria as long as it did not imperil his family and he would try his damnedest to make sure that Pilot and Moya would no longer suffer because of his presence on board. That’s what motivated him and that was what mattered.

Today had been a good day – John contentedly thought. 

Good, hard work had seen them make great progress in repairing and reactivating some of the major systems that had been seriously damaged. Pilot had been delighted with the results and had informed them that Moya no longer felt pain or worry about permanent impairment. 

D had properly laughed for the first time: a full throated giggle, fate for a change being on their side and allowing both Aeryn and himself to be present at that awe-inspiring moment. Fate had also wanted Chiana in the room at that wondrous time - the contagious power of D’s innocent laughter finally achieving what they all had tried to do day after day for weekens - the pealing sound of D’s joy had cracked her inconsolable sadness and a smile had softened her delicate features again, like a flower opening its petals to the sun after a too long spell of darkness.

And now here he was, holding the woman who owned his heart and soul, his arms wrapped around her, his body spooning hers closely from behind, his head resting beside hers on the same pillow, his nose buried in her hair and taking in its heady smell, his hand stroking her taut belly, her hand stroking his arm lightly in turn sending shivers of pleasure and warmth through him. He didn’t want to jinx it but, yes, this was as contented as he had ever felt in his life, now, at this very moment!

“John?” Aeryn’s voice broke his happy reverie 

“Mmm, yes?” He replied still absent-mindedly revelling in the smell of her hair.

“Earlier, today..you were holding D in Centre Chamber, changing his diaper, blowing on his belly and playing with him…looking at the two of you made me think of when we were on the Royal Planet…it brought back to me how happy you seemed when I walked in on you and Princess Katralla…do you remember that? You were holding the holo-projection of the baby that the two of you might one day have…”

“Yeah, I remember.. I never actually saw you walk in then but you told me before that you had seen us…I often think about that too, about what happened..” his voice trailed off as his mind wondered forward to the moment when he had had to make the impossibly hard decision of leaving his unborn daughter behind. Knowing that Aeryn would understand and follow his mental leap, he forced himself to say what he wanted to believe, what he needed to believe “at least I know that my little girl will be loved as much as D is loved by us. It gives my mind a measure of peace.”

Aeryn pulled his arm even tighter around her body, sorry for a moment to have brought up a subject she knew was still painful for him, then continued with her train of thought:

“There are so many things about that time that I have often wondered about… what would have happened to you, to me.. to us, if the Peacekeeper spy…what was her name?”

“Jena…Jenavian Chatto, I think, was her full name” John replied

“Yes, if Jenavian had not saved your head and reanimated your body…would you be dead? Or would you still be a statue and where would I be now? Have you ever wondered?”

“I dunno, babe, somehow I would like to think we would still be here together, that things would have worked out for us in spite of it all. I really believe with all my heart that this is where we should be, that we were destined to be together exactly as we are.”

“Mmhmm, I would like to believe that too, John…however we owe her a debt of gratitude, maybe she was just fate’s instrument but she still put her life at risk for yours.” Thoughtfully Aeryn paused for a moment, then continued “I remember D’Argo and Chiana telling me how frantically worried they were about you when the statue was discovered missing. How the entire palace was searched from top to bottom …where were you while everybody thought you were dead?”

John’s heart started incrementally beating faster, he didn’t like the direction this was going, not now, not today when everything else had just been so perfect. The last thing he wanted was to have THAT conversation – for a moment he cursed himself for not having come clean a lot sooner with Aeryn about what happened that long ago night, stupid, he knew, but somehow the time had never seemed right for one reason or another. He searched his brain for a way to change the subject but drew a total blank.

“After I was put together again and brought back to flesh and blood, I could barely walk at first, my legs were like jelly and my brain felt like scrambled eggs, so Jena took me to a remote place by a lake outside of the city. She thought I would be safe there for a while from Clavor and the Scarran. We stayed there until I was able to function again and the next day, we came back to the palace only to find that the prince had been fried by his lizard friend and that Chiana had also disappeared…you know the rest.”

“Mm hmm” Aeryn agreed. John held his breath but slowly exhaled again when the silence continued for a good 60 microts. He let himself close his eyes, sleep gently approaching, limbs relaxing.

“Did you recreate with Jena that night, John?”

‘Frell!’ he thought and hesitated just for a split microt – the wish not to be hurt physically by a well delivered Pantak jab, but above all the wish not to hurt her feelings danced around in his addled semi-asleep brain and made him blurt out:

“No, of course not, what made you think that! Nothing happened!”

‘Crap, John, you are a bloody moron for lying to her!’ the thought flashed through his mind the moment the words left his lips.

The bare-faced lie made his body stiffen for a moment before he forced himself to relax again. The damage was done, it was too late to take it back without making a huge issue of it, he might as well learn to live with it as he had learnt to live with lots of other much worse stuff.

Again a peaceful silence ensued. Aeryn continued to stroke his arm and again he let himself hope that the conversation might finally be over.

“John?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“I know you did it not to hurt my feelings, but please don’t ever lie to me again.” Low gravelly voice betraying very little.

Relief and anxiety collided in his chest – relief that the stupid lie had had very short legs and slight anxiety at what the consequences might now be. 

“How did you know?” He asked

“I just know you, John Crichton….you hesitated for a microt before answering and your body stiffened ever so slightly when you lied.”

Damn, she did know him! She knew him better than his father ever had, better than Livvy and yes, probably even better than his own mother, a thought that made him feel naked, defenceless and exhilarated at the same time.

“Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t enjoy it and that I thought of you the entire time?” He tentatively asked

“No, so don’t even try!” Aeryn paused and then in a serious voice added: “However, I would believe you if you told me SHE didn’t enjoy it!” She barely made the end of the sentence before her voice cracked in what was obviously a repressed laugh.

The tension flowed out of his body, if she was making a joke about it, he was going to be OK and somehow the fact that she had forgiven him so quickly for lying to her and her intuitive understanding of the main reason why he had done it, made his throat constrict in a surge of such fierce love for her that it took him a moment to swallow it back down into his chest, to the very centre of his heart, and before he was able to joke back:

“Well, Mrs Crichton, you seemed to have no complaints less than an arn ago when you were biting my shoulder to stop you from crying out loud and waking baby Sun-Crichton!” He teased her with the absolute truth of what had happened.

“The reason for that is that I love you and therefore I can overlook your shortcomings, Jena just lusted after your body and didn’t have any reason to make excuses for you!” She finally gave in and laughed openly.

“Ha, ha, very funny, Aeryn!”

She giggled for another couple of microts before yawning, snuggling tighter into him and murmuring:

“Let’s get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be another long day”

“Good night…and Aeryn? I love you!”

Sleepily she kissed his arm wrapped around her chest and said “See? I believe that! You didn’t hesitate or stiffen when you said it”

“That’s mightily unfair! How do you expect me to stiffen after two bouts of mind-blowing lovemaking like the ones we just had…just give me a few arns and I will show you what stiffening really means!”

She chuckled at that and already half asleep she muttered “I will hold you to that, John Crichton!”

And with his name on her lips, she finally let herself fall into Morpheus’s arms. Just before he abandoned himself to the same embrace, his thoughts fleetingly turned to Jena. Before tonight, he had not thought of her in a very long time. He suspected a lot of people might have wished her dead given her activities, hell, as far as he knew she might already have been killed a thousand times over but if she was still out there somewhere, he wished her well wherever she was, whatever she was doing.

He, for one, had everything he needed or wanted right here.

The end


End file.
